I have been 30 for just over a day. I haven't actually done any of that "sleep" stuff since Last Day, either. Been a weird couple of days, but good.

And now, really, really surreal.

Just as I was to hit the hay last night, I get an e-mail, and I recognize the address. It's the Ex. The one I haven't heard from since before swiftboating was a verb. The one I haven't seen from closer than across a half-full stadium at our younger siblings' high school graduation. The one I haven't seen in person for 13 years. The one who I was with for a whopping eight months total, but we'd clicked like we'd been together forever. We parted on relatively good terms (at least, as good as can be expected when high schoolers try to grapple with the idea that the girlfriend thinks that she and the boyfriend should both see other women), and chatted off and on over the years. We both lost e-mail addies at about the same time, and while I valued her friendship, I kind of figured that was that. We both have the kinds of names that make googling nigh useless.

And yet, bing, barely an hour after my birthday's over, she's wishing me a happy one. It's nice of her, and I thank her in a reply e-mail. Then I see she's got YIM, and drop her a line.

Eight hours pass.

It's all still there, more or less. Yes, the girl I knew is 13 years gone, but the chemistry's there. We're finishing each other's thoughts. We're naturally guessing at what the other's hobbies have been, and we're doing it correctly. I've apparently seen her little sister around town; she's almost certainly run into a couple of my on-line friends in her neck of the woods. We mock the same characters on the same TV shows.

Halfway through that eight hour marathon, I come out and say it. Yeah, it'd be ludicrous to even consider getting back together considering we've been all but incommunicado for over a decade, but we're talking the way we did back when we were dating. That shit ain't normal. She agrees, and says that things have changed. She still prefers women, but implies (or do I infer it?) that she's missing the way we used to make out forever without feeling like we had to fuck. She says the temptation's there, but the history is, too. I agree.

We share MP3s and slash fics and YouTube shit. We flirt a little more openly. We trade recent-ish pics after we both try to say we look awful, and we both point out that we're looking pretty good after all. She's been living alone for a year in a house in a town I'm fairly likely to be working in soon. More coincidences pile-up, to the point we've both been looking up Manos the Hands of Fate lately, or certain movies just yesterday. She's gone from being Ike to being Mickey, and I'm Mallorie formerly Tina. She used to be grossed out by men fucking. Now, she's asking me for info on it, since it's apparently a turn-on. We tease each other about the way we warped each other's tastes in the opposite sex. She no longer says she's a lesbian, and heavily implies that but for a single issue with fucking men, she'd prefer them now.

She says she's got a girlfriend in Iraq right now, and she seems pretty lonely. We taunt each other into breaking YIM so we can both finally get some sleep - just like high school again. She twigs on that I'm a little flustered. She says not to worry, that I was her first. I thank her, and tell her to tell her girlfriend to take care of her or I'll do "vengeance and spite and blahblahblah".

I know what the right thing to do is. I'm going to do it. I'm going to remember that coincidences happen, that she and I've got a lot more different than's immediately apparent, even after such a long chat.

It's going to suck for a bit, mind, but wow, did 30 ever start off funky.